The Wood Demon (Leshii)

With this new translation by Nicholas Saunders and Frank Dwyer, it is possible to see that Chekhov's The Wood Demon is a young man's play, bursting with vitality and energy. The people, including five comic characters abandoned or greatly diminished in the later play, "Uncle Vanya," for which Chekhov borrowed his own characters and material, do not allow themselves to be daunted. This translation of The Wood Demon was produced by the Mark Taper Forum as a classics lab workshop production in 1992...

Library Journal

Chekhov finished The Wood Demon in 1889, and within months it was rejected for production by two theaters. Chekhov himself wrote, ``I despise this play and am trying to forget I ever wrote it.'' Ten years later, however, he reworked it into Uncle Vanya, which is considered a masterpiece. This new translation was rendered by Dwyer, a literary manager of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and director of an upcoming version of The Wood Demon , and Saunders, who previously translated Mikhail Bulgakov's Zoya's Apartment . Students of Chekhov will find it fascinating to compare this early work with Vanya. A valuable bonus is an afterword that gives interesting background information on the original play. The Wood Demon is often left out of collections of Chekhov's plays and is minimally mentioned in critical works. These considerations alone justify the work's inclusion in most theater collections.-- Diane H. Albosta, Episcopal H.S. Lib., Alexandria, Va.